A Comintern Agent in China 1932-1939

314 Pages·1982·17.269 MB·English

by  Otto Braun

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H
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A COMINTERN AGENT IN CHINA
1932-1939
Otto Braun
Translated from the German
by Jeanne Moore
Introduction by Dick Wilson
The only foreigner to take part in the Long
March, Otto Braun was a Comintern agent of
German nationality who spent the years
1932-39 asa military adviser to the Chinese
Communist Party. His memoirs, one of the
few inside reports we have on the CCP and
the Red Army during these critical years, are
an invaluable historical source, providing
many insights into the political and military
developments of this period and a wealth of
factual data. His book is one of the half-
dozen memoirs of the Chinese Revolution
that must be regarded as basic in the field.
Braun began his mission in Shanghai,
where the Central Committee had its secret
headquarters. In early 1933 he moved with
the Central Committee to the Red Army’s
headquarters in Kiangsi, where he remained
until the beginning of the Long March in
October 1934. He continued to serve as mili-
tary adviser in Yenan until 1939, when he
fell out with Mao Tse-tung and was recalled
to Moscow.
Braun provides new information on many
key issues of the period, notably Mao’s
policies toward the Fukien Rebellion and the
Sian Incident, the break in radio com-
munication with Moscow during 1934-6,
the strategy of the Long March, and the
Tsunyi Conference of 1935, at which Mao
became the party’s undisputed leader.
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A COMINTERN AGENT IN CHINA
1932 — 1939
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A late portrait of Otto Braun (1900 — 74).
OTTO BRAUN
A Comintern
Agent in China
1932-1939
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY JEANNE MOORE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DICK WILSON
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
1982 .
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
This translation © Jeanne Moore 1982
Introduction © Dick Wilson 1982
Originating publisher: C. Hurst & Co., London
Printed in Great Britain
ISBN 0-8047-1138-0
LC 81-85452
First published in German in 1975 as
Chinesische Aufzeichnungen (1932 — 1939)
© Dietz Verlag Berlin (GDR) 1973
CONTENTS
Introduction by Dick Wilson page vii
Abbreviations and Terms xill
1. Shanghai, 1932 — 1933 1
2. In the Central Soviet Area, 1933 — 1934
3. On the Long March, 1934 — 1935
4. Shen-Kan-Ning, 1935 — 1937
5. The First Years of the Anti-Japanese War,
1937-1939
Epilogue
Appendix
Index of Persons
Index of Places
SHATFORD LIBRARY
NOV 2008
4570 E. Colorado Biva.
Pasadena, CA 91106
PEATES
A late portrait of Otto Braun frontispiece
between pages 180 and 181
Sun Yat-sen
Members of the newly-formed CCP leadership, 1931
Leaders of the Chinese Red Army in Kiangsi, 1931
Wang Ming and other leading members of the ECCI, 1935
The mountain range on the Kwangtung-Hunan borders crossed
by the Central Army Group.
Hanging bridge, West Yunnan
Typical rock caves, Shensi
General view of Yenan
Units of the 8th Field Army approaching Yenan
Students of the K’ang-ta hoeing fallow land
The Author giving tacting instruction in the K’ang-ta
The Author in Yenan, 1939
MAPS
China: Administrative organisation at the beginning of the
1930s t= 9
The major Soviet areas before and after the fourth campaign of
Chiang Kai-shek 1932 — 3 32
The Author’s route from Shanghai to Jui-chin (with the Central
Soviet area after the stand of Spring 1933) 44
The Central Soviet Area at the time of the Long March, October
1934 82
The Long March showing earlier and later Marches 128-9
Revolutionary bases of the 8th Field Army, 1938-9, in the
hinterland of the Japanese occupying forces 246
V1